Abstract PI: ROBERTSON, ANDREW D Project: 1R13AI091292-01 Title: NK and NKT Cell Biology: Specificity and Redundancy of Innate Responses Accession Number: 3255538 ================== NOTICE: THIS ABSTRACT WAS EXTRACTED FROM APPLICATION AND HAS NOT BEEN PROOFED BY AN SRA.WHEN THERE ARE PROBLEMS WITH THE APPLICATION SCANNING PROCESS, THE EXTRACTED TEXT MAY BE INCORRECT OR INCOMPLETE. ================== This proposal requests support for a Keystone Symposia meeting entitled NK and NKT Cell Biology: Specificity and Redundancy of Innate Responses, organized by James P. Di Santo, Eleanor M. Riley and Mitchell Kronenberg, which will be held in Breckenridge, Colorado from January 9 - 14, 2011. Our knowledge base in innate immunity has exploded over the past decade, and our understanding of innate immune mechanisms will soon impact in the clinics. Nevertheless, we still have much to learn about how NK cells and NKT cells shape innate and adaptive immune responses. This meeting will address issues related to the biological roles of these two specialized innate lymphocyte populations by bringing together NK and NKT cell experts to discuss their latest cutting-edge results on topics including NK/NKT development;NK/NKT cell- ligand recognition;NK/NKT activation and "crosstalk";and roles for NK/NKT cells as both effectors and regulators of the immune response in inflammatory disease, infection and cancer. This "confrontation" between NK cell and NKT cell biologists should promote a lively forum for discussion and debate about the specificity and redundancy of NK/NKT cell responses, and can hopefully lead to new collaborations to help advance our understanding of the biological roles of these important innate mediators. In fact, this meeting is the only international meeting that brings together the world's leading experts on NK and NKT cell biology in a forum that is uniquely devoted to understanding the "crosstalk" between these two innate lymphocyte subsets. This meeting will address many questions related to fundamental mechanisms involved in the activation and regulation of immune responses to infectious pathogens. Moreover, understanding NK and NKT cell biology has broad implications, and therefore multiple, diverse plenary sessions will be devoted to the study of these two cell types, encompassing everything from signaling and development to whole organ studies of immune responses in the context of infection, autoimmunity and cancer.